Wednesday, September 01, 2010

When Big Trak first emerged in the 1980’s it was a wonderment of technology.

This programmable electric vehicle created by Milton Bradley in1979 was a marvel, a genuine marvel, to my 7 year old mind.

You could program into it where to go, forward 3 foot, left 5 foot,back 2 foot, and off it would go following your every command.AMAZING!!! A robot! At last! Comic books had been talking about them fordecades, and here we suddenly were in the 21st century with workingrobots in the home! What was next? Jet packs???

It was quite the phenomenon of course, introduced on “Tomorrow’sworld” and “Blue Peter” it had presenters suddenly talking about thisnew thing called “a computer” that “Big Trak” had inside it to tell itwhat to do.

It was also a huge toy, especially for a child. But this only made itmore terrific, you forgot the fact that it almost broke your back to pick it up in your awe of it. It bleeped and pinged as it drove along it’s plottedroute, and then also when it stopped. It was quite reminiscent of R2D2 fromStar Wars which of course only made it better. (It was the same colours as R2D2.).

Looking back on it now, with 21st Century eyes, eyes fogged by thedazzling Iphone and affordable 1000 GB hard drives, it looksslightly communist in design - of course it wasn’t then, it was bang up-to-date capitalist.

As a child, my parents could never afford such a thing. They wereexpensive at the time, so I was reduced to standing shoulder toshoulder with my fellow poorer classmates, as the richer boysprogrammed it mysteriously to move under it‘s own volition, to collectthem a can of coke, or to pull along their action figures.

Of course since that time many things have changed. Now, I CAN afford one! Notonly because I earn more money than my parents, but also because Big Trakis being re-released and only costs around £30! Astonishing!

You can get them here and at the same time fulfil those youngfantasies. Now, when are they going to get around to jet packs?